A Brief List of (some of) the Bible’s Other Gods

Deities, Demons, and Demigods of the Ancient Near East

“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” Exodus 20:3 informs the Israelites. God plants that one first on the list of the ten laws that lay the foundation for Israel’s Legal Code. But just who were these other gods? We get a hint in Exodus itself, when the Israelites begin worshipping a golden calf. In fact, throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites going off a worshipping other gods remains a common theme and source of conflict. These gods are the gods of other, powerful nations, some of them or gods indigenous to Canaan, and some may have been worshipped by the Israelites as part of an older version of the Yahweh cult. Some may have been associated with Yahweh himself.

We think of the religion of the Bible as being monotheistic, and certainly by the time Judaism had solidified in the post-exilic period, it was. Monotheism means there is belief (and therefore worship) of only one God. However, older forms of Israelite religion may have rather been henotheistic, meaning that while they may believe in the existence of other gods, they only worship one. This is contrasted again from a more traditionally polytheistic model, where even if you have a patron god, you may engage in worship of various deities for various reasons. We have some evidence…